Firstly, I find the title of this column somewhat offensive. While not an American, I cannot imagine anyone seriously believing that either of these individuals would bring or represent discernable risk to your children. Catastrophies happen at points of unexpected and uncalculated weakness. That is life. History is in backtracking and analysing how those specific weaknesses came to be. Nonetheless, weakness and vulnerability will remain a part of planetary life. Thus, Mr Dickerson's title seems more like a political tactic.

Secondly, the three candidates still standing in the US presidential represent distinctly different poltical and, yes, risk-management approaches. This fact should be celebrated and debated on points of substance, rather than fabricated fears, racism, sexism or even personality. These three individuals represent policy making machines, and there is less cross over in ideas than observed for generations.

For me, the Hillary Clintons represent the extension of the failures of the contemporary contract, Visa-card society. Her world view is administrative; nothing more. One can imagine much exasperation such as we see in her campaign. Yes. She knows letter and verse of the law, but has she ever conveyed serious reflection on the contemporary issues in jurisprudence and governance? Is she more than just a litigator? Is Bill more than just a good dinner guest? Where is Bill?

Barack Obama seems to embody truly some worthy post-modern perspectives, some of which were shaped by his efforts as the editor of the Harvard Law Journal, where he was forced to immerse himself into the contemporary debates of jurisprudence. He seems less of a scholar, but he certainly has grasped the vernacular and likely brings some excellent and refreshing minds into his team. More than the Clinton team attracts.

John McCain fully embodies America's past--the good, the bad and the ugly of it. His political philosophy is founded on a post-WWII world of returned soldiers restarting their lives on US mortgage and education grants and a then-romanticised pride of what made America different from the fatigued terrains they had traversed and suffered on. He may look like an old Bachelor, but one suspects he has a standing ordinance for Viagra at his local pharmacy. His time and that of the traditional conservatives who form his core support has passed.

Lastly, US history and its role in the world has been shaped by a small group of intellectuals who emerged from the rubble of the Vietnam-War and Civil-Rights liberalism of the 1960s and 1970s. Exhausted by failed social visions, they embraced cynicism and tied it to John McCain's sort of Veteran conservatism. When the Southern Clinton arrived, himself a product of a rather insular corner of the US, the Neocons had found their middle road. In 2000, their management buyouy was complete with Bush as Chairman and the not-so-intellectual Cheney as CEO.

It was during these past two decades that we have observed the shift in Israeli and American Israeli politics move fully from Ashkenazim liberalism to Likudite neo-conservatism. Sadly, militant Likudites exploited parallels in US politics and tied the broader Jewish legacy/future to some very unenlightened political fortunes.

Today, so far, it is only the Obama team that has remained largely untainted by the Tel Aviv fight. It is only the Obama team that has staked out a clear willingness to look at the world differently. It is too late to expect either the Hillary Clintons or John McCain to offer anything more than disputed old contracts and tired war stories.

From Old Europe, we hope voters on Tuesday will open the door to something new in America. Otherwise, we will brace ourselves for America's less-than-graceful exit from the global leadership stage. As polls here clearly tell, we would choose otherwise.

One added thought to what is already too long a post:

The Clintons appear to be reinforcing a fear agenda vis-à-vis Cuba in the hopes of winning Texas' Hispanic votes. The debate on this seems too quiet. Obama needs to state a clear position and forward-looking view in the next hours, if he has not already.

It should be noted that in 1992 Bill Clinton changed his stated policy on Cuba in advance of the Florida primary and in the wake of noise created when former President GHW Bush stated he favoured an end to the Embargo. It was reported that Clinton had then offered a de facto promise to the Cuban American Federation that they would assume the role of a government in exile and be supported in their "return" given an event.

How much light is being put on the Clintons' complicity with the CAF? Is Obama shifting his weight to keep his balance on this rocky stone? Or is he looking ready to show that he thinks the sharks in those waters are less in number and hunger than Hillary suggests?

Fortunately for Barack Obama, Texas is not like Florida. The Cuban exile population (including their descendants) is a lot larger in Florida than in Texas.

If the London Sunday Times' report that Obama is striking alliances with Reagan Republicans, which originates from their correspondent's travels in Texas on the Obama plane, makes press there, then it should help him. He represents a far more centrist power base than Clinton. While I have long recognised Obama's depth and reasoning on foreign policy (ever since I picked up on dispatches about his meetings across Africa a couple of years back), I was stunned by this report partly because it made so much sense.

The US would be well served by a coalition government. A divided house beset by economic and international decline or worse will not right itself.

Yes, I have been suggesting in the fray that Barack Obama should choose a moderate Republican woman as his running mate. The job of VP is mostly symbolic but symbolic gestures carry weight.

The division in US government at the federal level is extremely toxic. Hillary Clinton simply cannot bridge that divide.

Obama '08!